Veterinary medicine: Eliminating rabies with mobile apps.

A study has shown that rabies could be eliminated with the use of a mobile app,the study was published in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases. This study shows that mobile technology can help to monitor the efforts of large scale vaccination of free roaming dogs in real time thus allowing the identification of areas where vaccination needs to be increased to meet the 70 per cent threshold and cut the risk of the disease being passed to people.

 Researchers are using the app to track free-roaming dogs that have been vaccinated against rabies. Monitoring them in this way has enabled vets to vaccinate 70 per cent of the dog population in the City of Ranchi -- the threshold needed to minimize the risk that the disease is passed to people. 

 Rabies is a global problem that leads to the suffering and premature deaths of over 50,000 people and many times more dogs each year. 

 The disease has been eliminated from many countries through mass vaccination of the dog population. However, rabies elimination remains challenging in countries where the majority of dogs are allowed to roam freely.

Previous research has shown that vaccinating just 70 per cent of the dog population is enough to cut the risk of rabies infections in people. Teams vaccinated more than 6000 dogs in 18 districts of the city of Ranchi, India. They surveyed the number of marked, vaccinated and unmarked, unvaccinated dogs to monitor the proportion of animals that had received the vaccine. 

 The smartphone app called the Mission Rabies app was developed for researchers to instantly upload information about the animals vaccinated, including their exact location. In areas where coverage fell below 70 per cent, catching teams were re-deployed to vaccinate more dogs until the target was achieved.